Such breathtaking fiscal irresponsibility creates an analytic challenge for those who care about tax fairness. On its face, a plan to cut taxes by $12 trillion over the next decade, as Donald Trump’s proposal would do, would result in a net income gain for virtually all Americans in the same way that dropping hundred dollar bills from a helicopter would benefit all those beneath it. But any analysis of Trump’s plan that focuses solely on the tax cuts is woefully incomplete: in the long run, tax cuts of this magnitude will have to be paid for, and it won’t be pretty. If history is any guide, a mix of unpopular spending cuts and across-the-board tax increases will be required to offset most or all of the tax cuts.

The bottom line is this: Focusing solely on the tax side while ignoring the public services that taxes make possible doesn’t just tell only half of the story. It gets the whole story completely wrong.

McIntyre is the director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington D.C.-based policy organization that does analyses and advocacy for fair tax policies that allow the nation to raise the revenue it needs to fund its priorities.